Authentic Japanese Tea Tasting at Tea Plantation

Select date and participants:

Take commemorative photographs of the steam train passing by the plantation

Visit a tea manufacturing factory and learn about the manufacturing process

Enjoy a garden-fresh “new” (just produced) tea tasting

Cross the world’s longest wooden footbridge, the "Horai Bridge"

Overview

Enjoy the tea of Japan at the plantation itself while steam trains pass by.

What to Expect

In this experience, you get to try out tea picking at the 300 year old "Sakyoen" tea estate, get a manufacturing plant tour, indulge in the freshest of tea tasting, and cross Horai Bridge (Horaibashi), which is Guiness certified as “the world's longest wooden footbridge” (total length 897.4m) at a place a 15-minute drive from Sakyoen. Please note that the tea picking experience is limited to May, June, and September, with tea plantation tours offered at other times.

Sakyoen is a tea plantation in Kanaya and Shimada City (more like a town) areas of Shizuoka Prefecture, renown not just for tea, but for steam trains too. Sakyoen has a heritage spanning over 13 generations and 300 years, since the Edo era. Over this time, Sakyoen has been focused on the development of Japanese tea, harvest, and manufacturing. Experience freshness at hand, in the midst of a tea plantation that steam trains run alongside. The painstaking and dedicated work of tea production shows itself in the product, where a sweet scent graces each tea leaf. By all means, don’t pass up this opportunity to taste the best of Japanese tea at the source.

Horaibashi, crossing the Oigawa River, is a wooden footbridge with a length of 897.4 meters, and a width of 2.4 meters. As a valuable historical landmark, it is a tourist spot that represents the Shizuoka Prefecture and draws a large number of tourists. Famous as one of the few pedestrian toll bridges in the country, in 1997 it was recognized by the UK’s Guinness as "the wooden footbridge which boasts the longest length of the world." Also referred to as a "bridge of longevity," there is popular folklore associated with the bridge.

What's Included

Tea picking experience (May, June, and September only)

Tea plantation tour

Sakyoen manufacturing plant tour

Japanese tea tasting

Transfers by car between the train stations, tea plantation, and bridge